How the Government Is Live-Tweeting Its Shutdown

Senior Editor

The federal government "shut down" today, but Twitter is still up and running. Therefore, Silicon Valley technology companies are the future, and governing is the past. Isn't it interesting, after all, that one way the dinosaur government is attempting to stay relevant is by using Twitter to tell everyone how it is no longer working? Here, then, is the story of the how the government is shutting down today, on Twitter.

So the government has furloughed its social media officers—there's just not a budget for official tweets anymore—but not before releasing a few stern and surly 140-character laments into the confounded blogosphere. The shutdown is in every way ridiculous, of course, and more: it's a dystopian portent for an ungovernable future, and these lonely tweets are the tiny time-stamped reminders of how and when things began to stop working.